Community Advocacy

Culture-bound constraints to girls’ education still abound especially among rural and poor populations. These include early marriage, sexual harassment, excessive domestic chores and the low value placed on educating girls.

It is for that reason that our community advocacy work targets communities where these attitudes and practices are the strongest.

We work towards building public awareness on the social and economic value of girls’ education so that citizens themselves take responsibility for the task and collectively work to support the agenda.

We employ a number of advocacy strategies to enhance community participation in the provision of girls’ education. These include:

Mobilising communities to actively support girls’ education: Communities pass by-laws to protect girls from early marriage; participate more in school management; provide materials for construction of gender-responsive school facilities; support school feeding programmes; and, counsel girls on sexual maturation.

Reaching out through Mothers’ Clubs: Mothers work to enhance girls’ access, retention and performance in school through house-to-house sensitisation initiatives, child rights community training events, income-generating activities and literacy training.

Engaging with the media through mobilization and partnerships: FAWE mobilises media practitioners and engages in partnerships with media bodies to enhance the relay of advocacy messages on education, empowerment and gender equality to target groups within communities.

Participating in global and regional campaigns at national level: FAWE reaches out to communities through active participation in the Global Campaign for Education (GCE) Global Action Week, International Women’s Day, World AIDS Day, International Literacy Day, the Day of the African Child, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, and various national days on girls’ education, children’s rights and gender equality.